


New Arrangements

by reginahalliwell



Series: Stuck on Your Heart [3]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e10 Sebastien Raine, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Introspection, M/M, verbatim dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23865004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reginahalliwell/pseuds/reginahalliwell
Summary: David turns the tables on Sebastien, and then Patrick changes the game on David about Rose Apothecary.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Sebastien Raine & David Rose
Series: Stuck on Your Heart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712074
Kudos: 124





	New Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> Rating for excessive use of adult language and for references to past non-consensual interactions between David and Sebastien.
> 
> Uses verbatim episode dialogue where appropriate.

**David Rose**

Hey, just letting you know I’m not

going into the store today,

so if you were planning to stop by

for any incorporation-related paperwork,

I won’t be there.

**Patrick Brewer**

Are you okay? Why not?

**David Rose**

I’m fine. An ex is in town.

**Patrick Brewer**

Oh, ok.

…

Do you need to talk about it?

**David Rose**

It’s just there’s a whole thing where

my ex is trying to exploit my mother.

So I have to deal with that.

**Patrick Brewer**

Your mother is in touch with them?

Never mind, sorry. This isn’t any of my business.

**David Rose**

No need to play the pronoun game.

Sebastien Raine, google him.

He’s an asshole photographer that uses

people and then throws them away like trash.

**Patrick Brewer**

Ah, so he’s in town to photograph your mom?

And that’s a bad thing?

**David Rose**

Knowing Sebastien, it will be a very bad thing.

So, I’m taking a personal day.

But I’ll be in tomorrow.

Not that you need to know my schedule,

obviously, but I just thought I’d let you know

because you don’t have keys to the store.

**Patrick Brewer**

Why don’t I make a copy of yours,

that way I can get into the store if you

need me to?

**David Rose**

Yeah, that’s… that’s a good idea.

But I don’t want you coming here.

I don’t want Sebastien to get his claws into you.

I’ll come drop them off at Ray’s.

**Patrick Brewer**

Are you sure you have time to do that?

I can come get them.

**David Rose**

He’s out with my mom right now anyway,

planning for this photo shoot they’re going

to collaborate on.

I’m just sitting here.

**Patrick Brewer**

So you COULD be at the store right now?

**David Rose**

I guess you have a point.

But I’d rather be here for when they

come back, because I imagine my

mother will have gotten herself into some

sort of trouble from which it will be

my responsibility to free her.

Just speaking from experience.

**Patrick Brewer**

That doesn’t sound healthy. I’m sorry.

Why don’t you take your mind off it by

dropping off the keys. Ray just made lunch.

**David Rose**

And I can have some of the lunch,

or you’re just rubbing salt in the wound

by tempting me with food I can’t have?

**Patrick Brewer**

The food is yours. Come bring the keys,

eat your fill, and if you want you can tell me

about Sebastien’s plans for your mother.

And if not, you’ll at least have gotten food.

**David Rose**

Be over soon.

~

“God, Ray is a really good cook,” David said, filling his plate again with the stir-fry that Ray had prepared.

“Yeah, it’s definitely nice to have home-cooked food for lunch as opposed to eating at the café every day,” Patrick replied.

“As someone who _does_ eat at the café literally every day, I can vouch for that. This one time, my mother tried to make enchiladas, and she conscripted me to help. You do not want me anywhere near a stove. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.”

“Really? I love cooking. My mom and dad both have some really great family recipes that I grew up learning,” Patrick admitted.

“I grew up on my nanny Adelina’s cooking, which was admittedly delicious. She’s where I got my love of food.”

“Was that weird?” Patrick asked. “Growing up with a nanny?”

“Um, well, the alternative was being raised by my parents, who were ill-equipped to deal with a perfect angel like myself, let alone a demon child like Alexis.”

Patrick chuckled. “It is kind of hard to imagine TV’s Moira Rose swaddling a baby.”

“Oh great, so you’re a fan?”

“Ohhhh, I wouldn’t say that. I never watched _Sunrise Bay_ , but I did google your family, so I got the basics from IMDB and Wikipedia.”

“I did not know we had a Wikipedia page.”

“I wouldn’t let it get to your head, David,” Patrick advised.

“Don’t worry, I’m in no danger of that,” David said, rolling his eyes back as he grimaced, thinking of how far his family had fallen.

“So, did you want to talk about the Sebastien Raine situation?” Patrick asked, giving him the opportunity.

David screwed up his face again, shaking his head repeatedly. “I’m just kind of gearing up for them coming back to the hotel…not super excited to deal with him.”

“Well if you need someone detached from the whole situation, I’m here to talk.”

“Great. Yeah, no thanks. I don’t really want to sully our new business relationship by telling you about me and Sebastien. So. I will just give you these,” David said, awkwardly dropping the keys into Patrick’s hands, before backing away slowly. “And I’ll try to preserve what’s left of my dignity.”

Patrick tipped his head in confusion. “Dignity?”

“Let’s just say when I’m around Sebastien, I’m not exactly the business associate you know and mock. I’ll spare you the details.”

“Whatever you say, David. I’ll make copies of these and get them back to you tomorrow morning,” Patrick affirmed.

“Yeah, so let’s be safe and call it noon. I can’t be sure I’ll be done dealing with _this_ —” and David gestured dramatically towards the door to where Sebastien Raine was out, somewhere in Schitt’s Creek with his mother at this very moment, “in time to make it in in the morning.” David wasn’t strictly keeping store hours yet at this point, but he was trying to get as much done before the planned opening date as possible.

“Right,” Patrick agreed, not sure he would expect David to be in early regardless. He didn’t seem like much of a morning person. Still, the implications were a little concerning.

“Yeah, so… I’m gonna, I’m gonna go,” David said, backing away. “Tell Ray thanks for the food, and um, yeah, let me know how much the key costs.”

“Okay, David. See you tomorrow.”

“Yep,” David agreed, his mind clearly elsewhere as he hurried out the door and back to the motel.

~

David could not believe his mother had allowed herself to be photographed today. Here! In Schitt’s Creek. By that despicable, gorgeous, inconsiderate, ridiculously overconfident, exploitative, brilliant photographer that was his ex-boyfriend. So stupid. How could she let herself get into this situation?? Now David was going to have to pick up after someone else’s mess, _again_. How many times had he fixed Alexis’s problems, when she got herself into a _situation_? Did his mother understand what he was going to have to do to fix this for her?

UGH.

He was going to have to “lean in” to this moment with Sebastien now, wasn’t he?

David went to the office and grabbed the key to the Honeymoon Suite where Stevie had agreed to let him store his wardrobe. Glancing at all his options, David tried to decide what to wear to make this situation with Sebastien work out the way he wanted. He carefully removed the sparrow sweater he had chosen for the day, stripping off the grey tee he wore underneath, and set both aside. David pulled on a black tee shirt that really emphasized the darkness of his hair and eyes, and then situated his Helmut Lang leather jacket over it, which always helped him feel powerful, and confident, and sexy. He looked in the mirror, fixing a few stray eyebrow hairs and then taking a deep breath. He could do this. He wasn’t that person anymore, but he could pretend to be for as long as it took to get Sebastien unconscious.

On his way to the other end of the motel, David dropped off his clothes in his and Alexis’s room, returned the room key to the office, and steeled himself for what he was about to do.

 _Don’t let him make you feel small_ , David repeated to himself in his head. _You’re worth more than a fuck and an erotic photo. You’re worthy of being someone’s only one. You’re doing this for your mother._

“David!” Sebastien greeted as he opened the door, surprised to find the man had actually come to him.

At Sebastien’s stunned voice, David’s eyebrows rose automatically. The man seemed arrogant as they came. Surely he knew David would feel the pull toward him that so many responded to. He followed the photographer inside.

“Um, yeah, I was just getting a drink by the, uh… the vending machine, so,” David pretended to explain, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. His voice was practiced in making excuses for why he was coming to these types of late-night booty calls, but in this particular instance, he was much more certain of what he was doing and why, and the tone of his voice was all a lie meant to trap Sebastien.

It seemed he was buying it. “I had a prolific day with your mother today,” Sebastien proudly told him as he moved further into the motel room.

“Yes, she said,” David agreed, his cadence not betraying for a moment his true purpose in coming to Sebastien like this.

“Very excited about the shoot,” Sebastien continued, sitting down to grab one of the beers on the table. “The photos are really _haunting_.”

David’s eyebrows raised in bewilderment as he gesticulated wildly. “Haunting?” he said. “I’m sure she’d be thrilled about that adjective.” He noted that Sebastien seemed to be checking him out, appreciating the bulge of his pants as his gaze moved up David’s body. “Umm, she told me that this little trip was supposed to be more of a creative discussion.” David’s brow was furrowed in mock confusion. He knew exactly what Sebastien’s purpose had been. _This_ was what he had planned all along.

Sebastien’s face was beautiful, perfection even as his brow scrunched up in puzzlement. “David, your mother is a revelation.” The timbre of his voice, God, how had David forgotten the sound of it? It still shook him to his core. “This is the way she was meant to be presented to the world.”

David pursed his lips, positive that his mother’s preference about her public image was the exact opposite of what Sebastien was trying to expose. Oh, how far they had fallen. From the North American starlight to the trash-strewn ditches of Schitt’s Creek. Well, that’s why he was here.

“I’m sorry,” David said, decidedly _not_ sorry. “Is this _you_ deciding what someone else wants again?”

Sebastien’s breathy exhale betrayed his frustration at being so heinously misunderstood. “I—I want you to know that I care,” he said, his eyes downcast in solemnity, his hands crossed over his chest to emphasize the sincerity he attempted to project. He continued, “about what happened between you and me.”

 _What happened??!_ What happened was that Sebastien had strewn him along for three months, fucking him when he wanted and tossing him aside when he didn’t, passing off photos he had taken of David without his consent as photographic masterpieces to share with the world (or at least, the internet). After three months of what David had thought was monogamy (and the last time he ever let someone fuck him without a condom), David learned that Sebastien had been seeing other people the whole time. Their last month together, David had tried to pretend he was fine with the “casual” nature of the artistic asshole’s preferred arrangement. He had lost a lot of self-respect in his time with Sebastien, and would never again let someone take such advantage of him. Honestly, he was just lucky that he had come away from the experience with only emotional damage and no STIs.

David gazed up at the man whose profoundly bullshit sincerity was being thrown in his face once again, and couldn’t help the hint of a smirk that graced his face. He no longer looked up at Sebastien as a god, nor did he revel in the man’s attentions whenever he deigned to bless David with them.

Sebastien wasn’t done. He stepped closer to David’s body, their physical chemistry once more taking over as he moved into David’s intimate personal space. “And while my therapist said I should never feel sorrow, I do appreciate _your_ pain.” Sebastien’s condescension culminated in what he probably thought was a comforting palm on David’s chest.

David furrowed his brow again, making sure he played this right. “Okay,” he said, eyes squinting.

“And I wanna explore that,” Sebastien continued, as David knew he would.

David nodded, his eyes glancing off distantly as he offered “Uh-huh” in response.

“Maybe even…physically,” Sebastien finished, moving around David so he was touching him all over.

“Oh,” David said in mock surprise. This was no more or less than what he expected when he had come here, and he had prepared himself—mentally and physically—for what that meant. “Well, I shouldn’t,” he pretended to deliberate. Sebastien had always so predictably wanted what he couldn’t have. Wanted David to do things that were bad for him, that he thought was wrong. The man got off on other people’s self-destruction. He was a fucking embodiment of artistic schadenfreude.

“Oh, you should,” Sebastien countered, thankfully now behind David and unable to see the revealing expression on his face.

“Okay, fine,” David agreed hesitantly. “But, um, I can’t stay.” When he had _wanted_ to stay the night, Sebastien had reveled in denying him that pleasure. It was such simple reverse psychology, and it was pathetic how easy it was to manipulate Sebastien this way.

David had thankfully learned a lot about himself from his horrible experience with Sebastien, much more perhaps than he had learned from his other disastrous social and sexual relationships. His current self-awareness allowed him this small look back at who he had been, a toe dipping into the water of his past life. He wouldn’t let it drown him. He knew better who he was now, what he was worth. He had Rose Apothecary, and a business associate who believed enough in him to invest in the new business, and a friend in Stevie, and a better relationship with Alexis. He was better than this. Better than Sebastian Fucking Raine.

~

It was not the best fuck of his life, nor the worst, but he did take some pleasure in it. Pleasure enough in that Sebastien’s cock in his ass had gotten him off. More pleasure in knowing that when Sebastien fell asleep, David had quietly gotten up, removed the memory card from the camera, dropped it in a glass of water, then ground it quietly under his shoe. He placed it in the pocket of his pants which were lying carefully folded near the motel bed, ready for the sweet revenge of seeing the photographer’s face in the morning when he discovered what David had done. How David, whom he had always thought pathetic and sad, had betrayed him with such careful planning and manipulation.

When David stepped out the door the next morning, once again made up in his all-black ensemble with his dark pompadour stroked back into place, the look of surprise on his face when he saw his mother was genuine. Did she really think her own flesh and blood would betray her like this? Then again, it was his mother who had invited his abusive ex-boyfriend her in the first place.

David continued the ruse. “Um, yes, Sebastien and I just had some, um, _stuff_ that we needed to talk about.”

“Well, I’m having a hard time landing on surprise or betrayal,” Moira had said.

“Yeah, I should probably go. So…” David agreed, moving around Sebastien’s body as only a lover would, touching him gently on the arm as he left.

“Give me the memory card, Sebastien,” his mother demanded.

And when David pulled said memory card out of his pocket and explained just how he had fucked over Sebastien Raine, it was one of the most delicious moments thus far in this life.

The look on the photographer’s face was everything David had wanted. David could see that Sebastien learned in that moment just how shitty it was to be taken advantage of, just as he had taken advantage of David, and Moira, and so many others.

“It’s really good to see you, Sebastien. Good luck with the rest of the project,” he wished, and turned and walked out of Sebastien Raine’s life. Forever.

“David,” Moira said sadly as she took her son’s arm. “I feel terrible that you had to do that just for me.”

“It wasn’t just for you,” he admitted, knowing that he had gotten more than just that memory card back from Sebastien last night. He had also reclaimed some of his dignity, some of his pride, and self-esteem. “Let’s just say we both won.”

~

It was nearly 1:00 pm before David was able to get himself to head into Rose Apothecary. He had showered repeatedly to wash off the grimy feeling of Sebastien’s touch on his skin, and then had doubled up on his skincare routine since he had missed it the previous night.

When David walked in to the store that he was quickly realizing wasn’t just his, but his and Patrick’s, David’s heart swelled with pride. He saw his business associate among various unpacked boxes of product, a ledger open on the table next to him as he checked off the inventory against what David had ordered, and a set of labels he was attempting to apply to the glass bottles of liquid moisturizer that had just come in.

“Hey,” David said, pulling off his sunglasses.

“David,” Patrick greeted with a smile. “Dare I ask how your mother’s situation turned out?”

“All’s well that ends well,” David pontificated, a beatific smile on his face. Patrick wondered what lay behind that smile. Maybe he would never know.

“Well, I got a copy of the keys,” Patrick said, changing the subject for both of their sakes. “Actually, I made two copies, so you can give one to Stevie or Alexis or whoever just in case. I also started unpacking the stock that you didn’t get to yesterday, and I’m wondering what exactly ‘body milk’ is?” He gestured to the glass bottles to which he had just been applying Rose Apothecary labels.

“What do you mean? It’s body milk,” he said, his brows furrowed to demonstrate Patrick’s perplexing question.

“I mean, do you drink it?” Patrick asked, his own face betraying his confusion.

“Oh my god, no. It’s moisturizer. You put it on your _body_ to moisturize. It’s skincare, not a refreshment.”

“I don’t know, David. The word ‘milk’ to me suggests you drink it. What if the customers misunderstand?” He glanced down at the bottle disconcertedly.

“Okay, anyone with a fiber of common sense would know that it’s not actually milk,” David insisted, groaning.

Patrick laughed, “Okay, fine, you’re the one with creative control. But I bet I’m not the only one who will think it’s drinkable,” he suggested.

David looked at him doubtfully. “Why are you here, anyway? When you made your _investment_ _offer_ , I thought you would just be helping out with the back-of-house stuff, like the business-y things.”

“Yeah, I actually wanted to talk to you about that,” Patrick said. David immediately got nervous, and the concern must have shown on his face, because Patrick immediately backtracked. “Whoa, no, nothing bad. I just wanted to clarify our business arrangement. I think I probably gave you that impression, yeah, but I’m actually hoping that you might be okay with me taking on more of a role here. I only started working for Ray a couple of weeks before you came in, and it was never really supposed to be permanent. I was hoping for something I was a little more personally invested in, and this is definitely it.”

“So, what are you saying?” David asked, confused by Patrick’s suggestion. “Like, are you, are you asking to be business partners? You want Rose Apothecary to be _our_ store, not my store with you as a business consultant?”

“Um, yeah, if that’s okay with you. Or I could just be your employee, I suppose, but I feel like this is really something, David, and I want to be a part of it.”

“Right, yes, so…so you want us to be co-owners of Rose Apothecary,” David said aloud, more to himself than to Patrick.

“I mean, I can’t buy you out, and it’s obviously your store, your name is on it. But yeah, that’s how I think of it. And you can still make all the creative decisions, and I’ll do all the business stuff—”

“Except the accounting,” David cut in. “The reason we lost all our money is because of my dad’s business manager, so I, not that I don’t trust you,” he insisted, “But I don’t want to be out of the loop on that stuff. I need to be part of that, even though I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Patrick took this news in, the understanding washing over him of how helpless David’s family must have felt, to think they were doing everything right and then having it all ripped out from under them.

“Okay, David, yeah. So…business partners?” Patrick asked, his eyes hopeful.

“Business partners,” David agreed. “But you still better get that grant money,” he warned, knowing that they did really need the extra cash.

“I told you I will,” Patrick assured him. “If I don’t, you’re welcome to kick me out,” he said, so sure that he would be able to contribute in this way.

“Well, good. You’re going to work mornings,” David asserted, thankful that this meant he wouldn’t have to be up for their 9 am openings every day.

“Oh, am I?” Patrick asked playfully. “Don’t let all the power go to your head, David. But sure, I’m happy to let you get your beauty sleep.”

David looked at him in shock, disbelieving how well Patrick kept him on his toes. The man could dish it out just as well as he could take it. It was refreshing.

“Fine. Stevie volunteered to come help later this week, so let’s try to get as much done before she brings her chaotic energy into this space,” David warned, gesturing to the many glass bottles laying around. “Do you need to give Ray notice?”

Patrick winced, and David knew immediately that he already had. Well, he had called it. The man was far too self-assured for his own good. And maybe also impatient. But that was okay, because he was David’s _business partner_. They were business partners. He liked the idea of this new arrangement.


End file.
